Turnip Cake (Law Bock Gow) Reviews

This is the delicious savory cake served in dim sum houses throughout the year and, most auspiciously, on New Year's Day as a symbol of prosperity and rising fortunes. Turnip cake is made with Chinese turnip, law bock, which is a type of daikon radish. There is also a daikon radish called Japanese daikon radish, which is similar to the Chinese turnip in appearance. To make matters more confusing, law bock, translated into English, means turnip. Some produce vendors do not realize there is a distinction, but the Chinese turnip is more blemished looking than the Japanese daikon, which has a creamier white color. Although Chinese turnip is best for this recipe, whichever one you use, choose a firm heavy vegetable. The turnip should ideally be 8 to 12 inches long and about 4 inches wide.

Some people remove only the rind of the Chinese bacon and finely chop the whole piece, using all the fat. But I find this too rich, so I discard the layer of fat under the rind. In recipes that call for Chinese bacon to be sliced, all that is required is a sturdy cook's knife or cleaver. However, when the bacon needs to be finely chopped, as in this recipe, the bacon should be steamed first to make it easier. Make sure to use rice flour and not glutinous rice flour.

I've never met anyone who served the entire cake at once. During the first ten days of the New Year's celebration a few slices of all the different New Year's cakes are fried every morning for breakfast or when friends or family stop by. The cake will keep nicely in the refrigerator for ten days if wrapped in plastic wrap.

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Reviews

users rating3.5/4

I made this last year and I'm making it this year. It was very tasty. I used a combination of fresh shitake mushrooms and dried ones for extra flavor. Even steam some fresh mushrooms and decorated the center of the cake to give as gifts. I also used a combination of sausage and chinese bacon(coming from a meat lover family) and added chopped cilantro and green onions for exra flavor and color. My family members were very impressed and said it was the best cake they ever had.

I used this recipe last year for our Chinese New Year gathering and found it to be very authentic. This was the first year that I made the cake instead of my mom, and she was very pleased with the results. Instead of using bacon, I used chinese sausage, sliced into 0.5cm thick rounds. I have never had this cake with bacon before -just sausage. The "Chinese mushrooms" are shitake. There is a lot of work involved in making this cake, and so I bought the Kitchenaid shredder attachment, which works like a charm. Be sure to squeeze it fairly dry, since this cake was a little on the wet side (or just add less liquid). As another reviewer said, this cake can be "steamed" in any large pot/dutch oven by filling the bottom with water, and resting your cake above the water level on a small stand. I love to serve the first slice fresh, without pan-frying. Leftovers are pan-fried and served with oyster sauce or sweet/hot chili sauce. Also, if you make a large batch and think about freezing, the texture of the cake will change after defrosting. In spite of all the work, give this recipe a try- it is excellent, and those turnip cakes that you might have tried at dim-sum or a restaurant cannot eevn compare.

These turnip cakes are much better than the greasy, bland mush generally found in Chinatown. They're also hard to screw up. Ingredients are readily substitutable/omittable. For example, you can add more rice flour if you want a firmer cake. And I have on different occasion left out the bacon, used Chinese sausage, and even used American bacon. Also, a steamer isn't necessary. You can also put the casserole dish in a pot of boiling water, elevated upon a round metal cookie cutter.

You can use both Chinese sausage and bacon...I also find that chunkier pieces taste better. And to the reviewer from China, it can't be that wrong, as I'm from china myself, and my mother makes turnip cake, and it has the exact same ingredients!!!

Regarding the reviewer from China: If you're such an expert as to what constitutes a good recipe for this dish, why did you even follow this recipe? The possibilities that we can ascertain from your comment is that you are a) a horrible cook, b) one of those that think they are an A-class cook because they can follow a recipe, or c) a horrible cook that can't follow a recipe and blame the writer.